long in this trench, but the Germans have very little wire because they
have not been able to get it up yet. They never will get it up now....

I had been led to believe that No Man's Land was littered with the
unburied dead, but I saw nothing of the sort at this place. There had
been no German counter attack since our men came up here. But at one
point as we went along the trench there was a dull stench. "Germans, I
think," said my guide, though I did not see how he could tell.

He looked at his watch and remarked reluctantly, "If you start at once,
you may just do it."

I wanted to catch the Boulogne boat. It was then just past one in
the afternoon. We met the stew as we returned along the communication
trench, and it smelt very good indeed.... We hurried across the great
spaces of rusty desolation upon which every now and again a German shell
was bursting....

That night I was in my flat in London. I had finished reading the
accumulated letters of some weeks, and I was just going comfortably to
bed.




IV. NEW ARMS FOR OLD ONES


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